It’s always thrilling to find extreme metal in unlikely places. Labenese (by way of Amsterdam) blackened death metal act Kaoteon are embracing their status as unique cultural representatives by writing some truly compelling music while smashing middle-eastern stereotypes. Regardless of locality though, Kaoteon crushes. Spearheaded by duo Anthony Kaoteon (guitar) and…
I firmly stand by the belief that the avant-garde is a nexus, a point in space where no genre can actually exist, like an aural black hole. Everything that music stands for is gathered in this single point, so therefore it is every genre and none at the same time.…
Almost no other death metal band in today’s landscape has carved out such an important and impenetrable sound as Gorguts, the Canadian masterminds that have been warping brains and defying musical conventions for over two decades. You could easily lump them in with greats like Death and Morbid Angel for their sheer level of innovation within the genre, mostly due to 1998’s apocalyptic and terrifyingly avant-garde album Obscura. Oh, and it’s also worth mentioning that the band rose from the ashes a few years back after over a decade of silence and dropped Colored Sands, arguably the finest metal comeback album in history. It’s still an almost-unrivaled masterpiece of modern metal, borrowing from the lush atmospherics of bands like Porcupine Tree and Opeth while seamlessly synthesizing it with their trademark wall of dissonant aggression and even a full-on string quartet piece. The band sounded unquestionably inspired, completely focused and ended up becoming one of the more influential figures in the style as of late. Thankfully, Gorguts fans won’t have to wait for over another decade for the next batch of compositions from Luc Lemay & Co., and Pleiades’ Dust completely fucking delivers.
